During a patient's stay in a hospital, the patient is normally confined to his or her hospital bed for some period of time, at least initially. During this portion of the patient's hospital stay, all of the care functions provided by attending physicians, nurses and the like are provided to the patient as he or she resides on the hospital bed.
Since the patient is not ambulatory during this period of his or her stay, the patient is unable to leave the hospital bed and travel to, for example, the bathroom. Thus, attending personnel must provide the patient with a bedpan for use on the bed. As is appreciated, use of a bedpan on a hospital bed by a patient who is in a generally supine position is difficult and cumbersome, at best.
It has therefore been an objective of the present invention to provide a hospital bed which includes an on-board toilet module which permits use by a patient in a conventional manner as opposed to the difficulties encountered with use of a traditional bedpan.
Hospital beds which convert to a chair configuration have been known for some time. Particular types of chair beds which provide for convenient and ready egress of a patient from the foot end of the bed when the bed is configured into a chair configuration are disclosed in co-pending applications Ser. Nos. 08/234,403 and 08/186,657 assigned to the assignee of the present invention. In those applications, chair beds are disclosed which have vacatable foot sections which, when the patient support platform is lowered to a lowermost position, allow the patient's feet to rest directly on the floor. Sideguards/handrails are provided on the foot end of the bed and are convertible from pivoting footboard halves for grasping by a patient to aid in egressing from the chair configured bed and in moving from a sitting position to a standing position. The patient can manipulate the vertical control of the hospital bed to assist the patient in moving from a stooped position to an upright position.
Another objective of the present invention has been to provide a hospital bed which provides for repositioning sideguards/handrails which are located at the foot end of the bed to a position intermediate the foot end and head end casters such that any downward load applied by a patient to the sideguards/handrails is applied intermediate the head and foot end casters in order to optimize the stability of the bed as a patient egresses from the bed and moves from a sitting position to a standing position.
In a chair bed of the type as disclosed in co-pending applications Ser. Nos. 08/234,403 and 08/186,657, the patient may have occasion to move from the chair configured bed to a patient care module positioned at the foot end of the bed, such as, for example, an exerciser, a scooter or walker, a toilet or a wheelchair, as disclosed in co-pending application Ser. No. 08/230,061 also assigned to the assignee of the present invention. It would be helpful if structure were provided to help guide and stabilize the patient as the patient moves from the chair configured bed to the patient care module.
It has therefore been yet another objective of the present invention to provide apparatus for stabilizing and guiding a patient from a chair configured hospital bed to a patient care module positioned at the foot end of the hospital bed.